The Friends of Barack Obama, Part 2

Last night, in The Friends of Barack Obama, Part 1 I reviewed Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, who helped to kick off Obama’s first political campaign and with whom Obama’s campaign says he has a “friendly” relationship. Ayers and Dohrn were domestic terrorists in the 1960s and 1970s, and they are as radical now as they ever were, as evidenced by their own words. Obama emerged from the far-left fringe of Chicago politics, and his relationship with Ayers and Dohrn, like his relationship with spiritual mentor Jeremiah Wright, raises important questions about Obama’s own political beliefs.

Obama has defended his relationship with Ayers and Dohrn by saying that Ayers did “reprehensible” things forty years ago, when Obama was eight years old. He says that Ayers and Dohrn are now respectable, mainstream figures in Chicago. But the reality is quite different; they, like Wright, are anything but “mainstream” in their views of America. The audio clips in which Ayers and Dohrn reveal their still-radical views were uncovered by Guy Benson, a recent college graduate who works for radio station WYLL in Chicago. Guy writes to introduce this series of clips:

In the process of doing some late-night research for both my own radio show and the program I produce, I stumbled upon a number of breathtaking videos featuring unrepentant terrorists William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. Both are now gainfully employed at major Chicago-area universities, and both have longtime connections to presidential candidate Barack Obama.

The audio linked below falls into two categories:

First, a number of “terror era” comments from Ayers and Dohrn from the late 1960s and 1970s emphasize how truly radical, violent, and virulently anti-American they were.

The second batch comes from a recent reunion of aging radicals in November 2007. These clips show that Obama’s pals are as unhinged as ever, and they severely undermine Team Obama’s spin that Ayers and Dohrn are now “respectable” members of the political “mainstream.”

The Top Five – THEN and NOW:

1. William Ayers Then: clip titled- Ayers fighting and upheaval

In 1970, the Weather Underground’s top leadership was forced to go into hiding after three fellow weathermen accidentally blew themselves up while building an explosive devise in New York City. The bomb was intended to target a military dance at Fort Dix, New Jersey. While living in the shadows, Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn participated in a series of short films. In this clip, Ayers explains how living underground served as a convenient “base” for his group’s destructive plots.

Addressing the SDS reunion in 2007, Ayers outlines the Left’s strategy for the future, which requires them to “speak in a language that is large, and generous, and encompassing and then we have to act.” (One wonders if a certain Left-blessed presidential candidate with a nice smile and a vague mantra of “change” might fit the bill perfectly.)

In this vintage recording (circa 1970), the voice of Bernadine Dohrn warns Americans that the Weather Underground is planning a series of violent attacks. She cautions her fellow citizens to guard their colleges, banks, and even their children. Dohrn explains that the revolution is designed to bring American society (or the “pitiful, helpless giant,” as she so elegantly phrases it) “to its knees.”

At the same 2007 SDS reunion, Dohrn quotes Martin Luther King, Jr., referring to the US government as “the greatest purveyor of violence” in the world. She says she believes this sentiment to be true today. She tells the audience that living in America constitues living in “the belly of the beast” and “the heart of the monster.”

Does Barack Obama really consider these views to be “respectable” and “mainstream,” as his web site indicates? If so, what does that tell us about Barack Obama and the hard-left milieu from which he emerged? Likewise, what are we to make of Obama’s suggestion that Jeremiah (“God damn America”) Wright’s church is “not particularly controversial”? A politician can’t pick his relatives, but he can choose his spiritual mentor and those who host fundraisers on his behalf. Barack Obama owes the American people an explanation of his choice of friends and political associates.